Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac is presenting a solo exhibition by the artist Cory Arcangel, born in Buffalo (USA) in 1978. Arcangel has built up an international reputation since the early 2000s with his innovative performances, videos and computer-generated projections. Arcangel is now considered a pioneer of a generation of artists who have devoted themselves to the archaeology of (computer) technologies. The presentation of the already legendary installation Clouds (2002) in the opening exhibition of the new Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (USA), America is Hard to See, underlines Arcangel's position.

The genealogy of iconic pop music numbers, awareness of the historic character of (electronic) musical instruments, the archiving of music and the mutual permeation of the “pop” and “classical” spheres have become central to Arcangel's work in recent years. Take for instance Arcangel's concert series Dances for the Electric Piano, performed from 2013 to 2015 at venues including ICA London (UK), Berlin Philharmonie (Germany), MUMOK, Vienna (Austria) and the University of Television and Film (HFF) in Munich (Germany). In these compositions Arcangel plays with our collective unconscious knowledge about the sound of the synthesizer Korg M1, popular in 1990s house and techno music, which has become less and less significant for electronic music since the 2000s.

One of the three works in the exhibition, the sculpture PSK (2014), has a similar function: it consists of the drum machine Roland TR-909 with a programmed rhythm which became popular with the song P.S.K. What Does it Mean? (1985) by Philadelphia rapper Schooly D. It is one of the most sampled beats in music history between 1985 and the 1990s. P.S.K. What Does it Mean? is considered one of the most influential songs of early hardcore and gangster rap, with direct textual references to sex, drugs and weapon use – still unusual at that time. The drum machine plays this beat in an endless loop, filling the exhibition room with a monotonous sound. In a public discussion with Hans Ulrich Obrist in Munich in May 2015, Arcangel repeatedly remarked that for him this work was about the protest about forgetting. According to Arcangel, technology is a trend, and his works save outdated technologies from being forgotten. “Maybe nobody would remember Marlboro and the Marlboro man, if it weren't for Richard Prince's work!?” says Arcangel.

Another work in the exhibition is the installation AUDMCRS (2011-15). From 2011 to 2012, Cory Arcangel’s Brooklyn studio archived 839 trance and underground LPs that had been purchased from legendary DJ Joshua Ryan. The AUDMCRS Underground Dance Music Collection of Recorded Sound is an archive of these LPs, presenting all relevant data (format, size, speed, generation, etc.) on each record with an accompanying image of the album’s cover art. The project underlines the personal obsession often involved with collecting, as well as Arcangel’s own interest in preserving a cultural history that relates to his work and life. “It is said that the music we hear as teenagers is, and will always be, the most important music for the rest of our lives” (Arcangel, 2011). “For me, this music is techno – the cheap, voiceless, machine-age disco that became popular in the clubs of Chicago in the late ’80s and from there quickly spread throughout the globe” (Arcangel, 2011). AUDMCRS was shown at the Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh (USA), DHC/ART Foundation in Montreal (Canada), Herning Museum of Contemporary Art (Denmark) and Reykjavik Art Museum (Iceland).

Kelly Clarkson's hit Since U Been Gone (2004) forms the background for the series of screen prints on silver foil SUBG (2011) also on display in the exhibition: for years, Arcangel has studied the genealogy of what he considers the first number in music history that could be called mainstream punk. For a long time, Arcangel collected CDs of numbers which led to Kelly

Clarkson's music. The screen prints shown in the exhibition are based on the surfaces of selected CDs from this collection.

The exhibition is accompanied by a concert to be held on Sunday, 7 June at 12pm in our Paris Pantin gallery. This is a unique collaboration between Cory Arcangel and the world-famous Ensemble intercontemporain founded in 1976 by Pierre Boulez, which is devoted entirely to contemporary chamber music. Since January 2015 the ensemble has been based at the Philharmonie de Paris in Pantin. The programme will include pieces composed by Cory Arcangel especially for the occasion, as well as works by Claude Debussy, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart/Daniel Glatzel/Johannes Schleiermacher and Anton Webern.

Cory Arcangel received a BA in classical guitar from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Ohio (USA) in 2000 and has since practised as an artist. Arcangel works in a wide range of media, including composition, video, modified video games, performance and the internet. His recent projects include Arcangel Surfware (2014), a merchandise imprint with products including bedsheets, iPad covers and magazines; Working on My Novel (2014), published by Penguin Books, and an extensive research project with a team of computer experts from the Carnegie Mellon Computer Club, in collaboration with the Andy Warhol Museum, the Carnegie Museum, and the Carnegie Studio for Creative Inquiry, to unearth Warhol’s lost digital experiments. Arcangel is the youngest artist since Bruce Naumann to have a solo show at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (USA, 2011). His other recent solo exhibitions include Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea Bergamo (Italy, 2015), Reykjavik Art Museum (Iceland, 2015), Herning Museum of Contemporary Art (Denmark, 2014), Fondation DHC/ART Montreal (Canada, 2013), Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh (USA, 2013), Barbican Art Gallery, London (UK, 2011), Nationalgalerie im Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin (Germany, 2010) and Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami (USA, 2010).

Cory Arcangel is the recipient of the 2015 Kino der Kunst Award for the Filmic Œuvre.

Valérie Jouve’s photographic and film work is rooted in the alchemy between bodies and space, humanity and the urban landscape. Titled Bodies, Resisting this exhibition at Jeu de Paume offers a substantial selection of works from the late 1980s up to the present day.

In her exploration of the relationship between people's bodies and urban spaces, Valérie Jouve brings a poetic and political eye to the issues raised by changes in society today. Jouve's work registers the tensions between urban space and the people in it.

The classic subjects of landscape and portrait are brought together in a way that draws splendidly choreographed scenes out of the intensity of urban situations. With its roots in mise en scène, Jouve's work lies somewhere between fiction and documentary. Her oeuvre is founded in an exploration of the ability of images to reveal a reality experienced by all.

This first monographic exhibition by Valérie Jouve comprises numerous photographs and films made over the last 25 years. It will also be the first presentation of Blues, a work created specifically for the exhibition.

Valérie Jouve seeks to offer the viewer not compassion, but action. She is sometimes moved to anger by people’s resignation.

She has approached the presentation of Bodies, Resisting as if it were a musical composition, imbued with a momentum that makes the viewer a participant. Visitors are invited to move through the exhibition in a way that makes them active.

“I'm trying to conjure up a kind of intensity I feel in living things…I'm working on inhabiting a space and I hope viewers come to experience that space through the images.”
–Valérie Jouve